THE SPOILS OF WAR

"They ask you (O Muhammad ) about the spoils of war. Say: "The spoils are for Allah and the Messenger." So fear Allah and adjust all matters of difference among you, and obey Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad ), if you are believers."
~ Surah al-Anfal.

Well. The news all day has been whether or not Saddam will hang in fifteen minutes or on Saturday; whether or not he was still in American custody or had been handed over to the Iraqis; whether or not the constitution specified execution within thirty days of the decision on appeal or after thirty days of the decision on appeal. Now it looks like Saddam will swing within the next two hours.

Why is there a sudden rush to hang Saddam?

Perhaps we should look at some news from last week in which secret evidence in Saddam's Anfal trial implicated Turkish complicity in the genocide of the Southern Kurds, originally from AFP:

Prosecutors seeking to prove that the ousted Iraqi dictator ordered the slaughter of 182,000 Kurdish civilians in the 1988 Anfal campaign produced a series of Iraqi military documents during the day’s hearing.

One was sent to the commanders of the 1st and 5th Corps of the Iraqi Army on August 21, 1988 and ordered them to carry out “heavy special strikes before starting the project to create a condition of panic among the citizens”.

Prosecutors have previously said that the term “special strikes” in Iraqi documents refers to the use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas or sarin. The document, signed by Iraqi chief of staff Nazar Abdul Kareem Faisal, insisted: “There must be full destruction of saboteurs in the northern area.”

And, in a revelation likely to stir anger among Kurdish survivors, the memo orders the Iraqi officers “to cooperate with the Turkish side, according to the cooperation protocol with them to chase all the refugees”. No detail was given of the alleged agreement between Turkey and Iraq. Ankara has long opposed the idea of an independent Kurdish homeland in northern Iraq, but it has never been proved that Turkey cooperated with Saddam’s forces during Anfal, which prosecutors describe as a genocide. While the document touching on Turkish links was read out, sound was cut off to trial reporters and no discussion of the memo could be heard, although the Arabic-language document could still be read on the court screens.

More from News24:

Evidence relating to Saddam Hussein's alleged use of poison gas against Kurdish civilians was given to his genocide trial in secret on Thursday, so as not to embarrass Turkey.

After seeing a string of memos issued by Saddam's chief of staff in 1988 ordering "special ammunition" attacks, the court cut off its microphones while studying documents relating to Iraq's northern neighbour.

"We will now cut the microphones because this concerns Iraqi-Turkish relations," said chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, who then presented various documents while the sound in the reporters' box was cut off.

No details were given of the evidence presented in this part of the trial, nor was it explained how it touched on Turkey.

Suddenly, Baghdad and the US are rushing the execution of Saddam to protect Turkey.

The long-time "ally" and client state of the US, Turkey has used chemical weapons against the Kurdish population of North Kurdistan. Rumors that Turkey was once again using chemical weapons against PKK gerîlas in February and March, 2006, sparked an uprising in Amed (Diyarbakir) at the end of March which spread throughout the Kurdish region. In keeping with its genocidal stance against the Kurdish people, the Turkish general staff, through Erdogan, gave the order to spare no Kurds during the protests, but to shoot all "supporters of terrorism" even if they were women and children. This is exactly what the Turkish army did, murdering a number of children and young people in Amed alone. Hundreds of other children were arrested and tortured. The hated Ozel Timler moved into Amed to direct the murders and also attacked the city's popular Kurdish mayor, Osman Baydemir.

Then the silencing of evidence in the courtroom last week, evidence that appears to show NATO member Turkey having a hand in the Anfal campaign. The Anfal trial has been of immense importance to all Kurds as a stage upon which all the evidence of Baghdad's genocidal actions could be aired and preserved. This becomes especially important in light of American propaganda that was designed to deflect blame from Saddam to the Iranians, and which ran counter to all the eyewitness survivors of the chemical attacks who clearly identified the perpetrators as Iraqis. But, Saddam was supported by the US against Iran, the arch-enemy who merely held a few Americans hostage for a short period of time.

Now the Iraqis and the Americans rush to execute--after all, it would be offensive to hang Saddam during Kurban Bayrami--while the Anfal trial remains unfinished, in an attempt to bury the evidence of genocide and the complicity of the US and Turkey in that genocide.

This is another betrayal of the Kurdish people by the US, thus proving once again that the Americans cannot be trusted . . . except by fools.

At this very moment the American broadcast media is busily dragging out all the "pundits," "experts," and all around know-it-alls to create the facade with which to justify this most recent American betrayal of the Kurdish people. "It's time to move on," and "The Iraqi people want closure," are the catch phrases of this evening, but no one asks for whom is it time to move on or whether or not the Kurdish people are ready for closure at the expense of the evidence of the Anfal campaign.

Besides, they're upset that they've only lost a few thousand troops and they think that Saddam's immediate execution will make Iraq safe for Americans.

Or they get really funny and invoke "Justice."

The blogosphere has been interesting all day, if you have a strong stomach. As suddenly as the rush to execute Saddam, the American bloggers can tell you exactly how many Kurdish villages were destroyed during Anfal; they can tell you how many Kurds were gassed by Saddam (hehehe . . . suddenly it's no longer all about Iran, is it?); they can tell you how many and in what manner Kurds were tortured by Saddam, and they do this to justify their war and their rush to execute. Americans have suddenly discovered humanitarianism for a victim that is now worthy to them because the victim is useful to them.

Why is it that these same humanitarian, Kurd-loving, Saddam-hating Americans cannot tell me how many Kurdish villages Turkey has destroyed? How many Kurds has Turkey displaced? How many Kurds has Turkey outright murdered in a so-called War Against Terror, Turkish-style? How many Kurds have been tortured, extrajudicially executed, and disappeared by this great NATO ally, this "Model of Democracy," this Eternal Victim of the forces of evil in the world? The Americans cannot tell me any of this information; they cannot tell me how much weaponry the US has sold to Turkey; they cannot tell me how much of that weaponry is used against unarmed Kurdish civilians.

The reason no Americans can tell me this is because the Kurds under Turkish occupation are not worthy victims, nor are they useful to American national interests. Turkey is the American ally and member of NATO. Turkey is America's Model of Democracy. Turkey buys a lot of American weapons.

Well . . . it looks like Saddam will swing in an hour. How lucky for the hypocrites in Ankara, Washington, and Baghdad that the Anfal evidence will now be buried and forgotten, so that all of them can move on and find closure.


See more protest of immediate execution from KurdishMedia:

Don’t execute Saddam yet

Saddam’s execution now is unfair, illegal and a plan against Kurds

An interview with Nijmaldin Karim of WKI on NPR, Kurds Feel Cheated by Saddam's Execution